“You’ll never guess what!” I heard her screech as she sat down. “The bloody intern kid just asked me what a nib was!” Again, Barrow’s cackle echoed.
This is the nib I filed to Barrow:
PRESSAC, the electronics group, is set to make another major move forward in the automotive industry with the purchase of Italamec, the Italian mechanical and electronic components manufacturer, for £20.7 million. The acquisition will be funded through a one-for-three rights issue of up to 12.5m new ordinary shares, priced at 180p each. Existing shares rose ½ p to 215 p yesterday.
The nib had taken me the best part of three hours to write, and I didn’t have a clue what it meant. I had, however, managed to translate some of the computer code into English using a red manual called How to Read the Financial Pages. Robert Cole had ordered all his students to buy the book during his first class at City. I remembered the class well because it was then that Cole also ordered me to shave off my beard before setting foot in any Fleet Street newsroom. “Is anyone else going to tell him, or shall I?” asked Cole, as Jamie, Chris, and Georgina snickered. “Ayres, get that bum-fluff off your face, old chap,” said Cole. “No one trusts a man with a beard. Just look at Richard Branson. And he’s got a billion pounds. You don’t have diddly squat, dear boy.” Cole mimed a shaving action. “Time to get rid of it,” he said.
Cole’s advice—on both the book and the facial hair—appeared to have worked. But wasn’t a job on the business desk supposed to be more glamorous than this? Why hadn’t I had lunch with a billionaire yet?
“Cheers for that,” said Barrow as I headed toward the door at 6:00 P.M. “That was a pretty clean nib. Not bad at all. See you tomorrow?” There was no mention of pay, or any kind of job offer, but at least I had survived the week. In fact, I was already well on my way to becoming a war correspondent.
GREENWICH VILLAGE, NEW YORK CITY
2001
5
FIGHT OR FLIGHT
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with you,” said the female voice from an unusual position behind me. I felt an index finger slide out of a place it definitely didn’t belong and heard a latex snap. “Done,” the voice said. “You can pull your jeans up now.” I bent down and wrestled with my Levi’s.
As I fastened my belt buckle, I turned to face Jeane Ruth, my local Greenwich Village doctor. She was a short, crumpled-looking woman in her forties who always dressed for extreme comfort. Today she was wearing red tracksuit bottoms, hiking shoes, and a hand-knitted cardigan in Christmas tree colors. I wiped a film of dirt and sweat from my flushed brow. Outside, the amplified squawk of an NYPD squad car competed with a fire engine to drown out the throb of the heater, which was wedged underneath the only window in Dr. Ruth’s tiny clinic.
“Bet you love doing this first thing on a Monday morning,” I said, in an effort to unwind the awkward tension. I couldn’t, however, look Dr. Ruth in the eye. She had, after all, just pushed her finger up my anus.
“I don’t know what to tell you, Christopher,” sighed Dr. Ruth. Her use of my full name, as it appeared on my health insurance card, reminded me of visits to my childhood doctor in Wooler. It was strangely comforting. “There’s nothing unusual up there as far as I can tell. Y’know, stress can cause a lot of phantom symptoms. There’s certainly nothing to suggest colonic cancer. It would be unusual for a twenty-six-year-old with your health to have colonic cancer. Very unusual.”
I suddenly felt winded with guilt. Since arriving in New York, I had visited Dr. Ruth’s clinic almost every other week. Each time, I was convinced I would leave in an ambulance, doomed to spend the rest of my tragically short life in the death-watch ward of St. Vincent’s Hospital. My symptoms were varied, exotic, and, from Dr. Ruth’s point of view, maddeningly nonspecific: My right leg keeps shaking; I need to urinate all the time; I feel dizzy; my back is sweaty; my skull bone aches. With the help of the Internet, I would always self-diagnose in advance of my appointments. Once, I had diabetes; another time Parkinson’s. Then, of course, there was my near miss with Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, caused by eating a hamburger made from mad cow. I later decided it was the premature onset of Alzheimer’s.
In three months Dr. Ruth had literally got to know me inside out. On every visit she would give me a weak smile before setting to work on me with her tools. Once her tests were complete, she would take notes in a pretty longhand, then declare me to be in unusually excellent health. At first I didn’t believe her. I demanded blood tests, urine samples, MRIs, and CAT scans—the full hypochondriac’s boot camp. I consulted arm specialists, leg technicians, ear-nose-and-throat experts. I received diagnostic bills from laboratories as far afield as Alaska. Before long, however, Dr. Ruth’s verdicts started to act as their own medicine. I would stride out of her clinic on Fourteenth Street feeling suddenly symptom-free. Sometimes I would smoke an ultra-light cigarette in celebration. But within days, they would start again. The symptoms would return, this time in a different combination. A long, sweaty session on the Internet would confirm the very worst. Then it would be time to see Dr. Ruth again. By the time I got to her clinic, I would have already planned the music for my funeral.
“So I’m okay?” I asked, looking at the heavy white plaster cast on Dr. Ruth’s leg, which she had broken on a skiing trip to Vermont. Of the two of us, I internally conceded, Dr. Ruth probably had the more serious medical problem. In fact, I wondered whether she resented the whole colon thing.
“Yes,” she said, wearily. “You’re okay. Absolutely fine.”
“What about you? That leg looks painful.”
“Fine. It’s an inconvenience, that’s all.”
She threw the used latex glove into the bin with only slightly more force than necessary, then hobbled across the room using the windowsill for balance. Her metal crutch, I noticed, was propped up by the door. Dr. Ruth really didn’t look very well at all. She coughed into her hand, picked up a tissue, and emptied her nasal passage. I noticed that her nose was raw with blowing.
“Stress can do a lot of things to your body, Christopher,” she croaked. “And I think your body is susceptible to it right now. Moving from London to New York is a big change. I know you’re used to dealing with stress with your job, but you can’t underestimate the effects of culture shock. You probably have an intestine that reacts badly to anxiety, which is causing you to experience the symptoms you describe. Try not to panic so much. It’s just anxiety.”
One intestine? Surely, one broken entrail couldn’t cause me so much discomfort. Then another thought struck me.
“But how can I be stressed? I have nothing to be stressed about! I have a nice apartment, I have a girlfriend, my job’s going well. It’s not like I’m being sent to war, for God’s sake. I’m a spoilt yuppie. And I don’t even feel all that stressed. It’s just that I feel so so… bloody wretched all the time.”
Dr. Ruth sat down heavily. “Christopher, listen to me. Anxiety doesn’t work like that. It can just build up in your system without you realizing it. That’s what’s happening to you right now. Your mind is channeling all your stress into phantom symptoms. Think about it: You need to pee all the time. Anyone can convince themselves they need to pee all the time—just like anyone can convince themselves they want to throw up. I can give you something for it if you want. It depends on how bad you think it is. I have no problem prescribing you some Zoloft.”